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Wednesday, July 26, 2006

COOL TOY OF THE MONTH

Looking like they wallked right off the pages of Darwyn Cooke's exceptional NEW FRONTIER mini-series, the figures from DC Direct's related series are a 10 out of 10. The first series includes Superman, Green Lantern, Wonder Woman, Green Arrow and Blackhawk, all in glorious 1950's-style retro design.

Here's Wonder Woman in her battle gear, complete with Greek warrior's skirt. She comes with two changeable heads — one with battle headgear and one with her standard tiara — her golden lasso, a shield, and a sword, but the sword is very fragile and will break off if you try to fit it into her hand, so widen the grip hole with an eyeglasses screwdriver or something before adding the accessory. I broke the sword on mine, so I reached into my handy toys accessories box — don't look shocked; all toy collectors have one — and dug around for something that would be a fitting substitute. I found a couple of lightsabers, but those looked too delicate for Cooke's chunky/wine-drinkin'/steak-eatin' version of the Amazing Amazon. A plastic turkey leg borrowed from a FIST OF THE NORTH STAR Juza toy would have worked in a humorous way, but the perfect chioce was a Klingon bat'leth, swiped from STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION'S Worf; that seemed not only appropriate, but it added just the right note of savagery to the bloodthirsty woman warrior.

That whole set of figures, much like the comics they are based on, were just too awesome not to buy. I wish DC would pay Darwyn Cooke to do a sequel or prequel (I would love to see him tell a Justice Society story) to DC: The New Frontier.